The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 651: MeatEater Radio Live! Rare Guns, Best Camp Spots, and Gettysburg

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

Welcome to MeatEater Radio Live! Join Steve Rinella and the rest of the crew as they go LIVE from MeatEater HQ every Thursday at 11am MT! They’ll have segments, call-in guests, and real-time interaction with the audience. You can watch the stream on the MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel, or catch the audio version of the show on Fridays. Today's episode is hosted by Spencer Neuharth, Cory Calkins, Seth Morris, and Phil Taylor.  Connect with The MeatEater Podcast Network MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sometimes when it comes to your personal fitness goals, you just need a plan. Peloton can give you the plan. Absolutely. And Steve, you've got a Peloton. I sure do. And Steve benefits from things like a variety of challenging classes. There are four-week strength-building classes, running, cycling, everything in between. Peloton can adapt to any goal in this season of your life. And by the way, the holidays are around the quarter. Now is when you need to be on the Peloton. Find your push, find your power with Peloton at onepeloton.ca.

Hey, American history buffs, hunting history buffs, listen up. We're back at it with another volume of our Meat Eaters American History series. In this edition titled The Mountain Men, 1806 to 1840, we tackle the Rocky Mountain beaver trade and dive into the lives and legends of fellows like Jim Bridger, Jed Smith, and John Coulter. This small but legendary fraternity of backwoodsmen

helped define an era when the West represented not just unmapped territory, but untapped opportunity for those willing to endure some heinous and at times violent conditions. We explain what started the mountain man era and what ended it. We tell you everything you'd ever want to know about what the mountain men ate, how they hunted and trapped, what gear they carried, what clothes they wore, how they interacted with Native Americans, how 10% of them died violent deaths, and even detailed descriptions of how they performed amputations on the fly.

It's as dark and bloody and good as our previous volume about the white-tailed deer skin trade, which is titled The Long Hunters, 1761-1775. So again, this new Mountain Man edition about the beaver skin trade is available for pre-order now wherever audiobooks are sold. It's called Meat Eaters American History The Mountain Men 1806-1840 by me, Stephen Rennella. Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. mountain time on Thursday, January 16th and we're live from Meat Eater HQ in Bozeman, Montana. I'm your host, Spencer Newarth, joined today by Seth Morris and Corey Calkins.

On today's show, we'll interview Joel Collander from Rock Island Auction about some super rare guns that are for sale. Then we'll get a migration report from Matt McCormick, followed by one minute fishing with Chester in Wisconsin. After that, we'll rank the three coolest places we've ever camped. And finally, we'll talk to Phil Musket about one of the most coveted public lands jobs in America. But before we do anything, Corey,

I need to issue an apology to you. Do you know why? No. There's not a chance you know why. Corey and I were Elkhoning in October, and it was a big full moon that night, and I was talking about how I am very entertained by doctors and school teachers and nurses

who say that, like, the hospital is the worst place to work on a full moon. Oh. Kids are harder to deal with on a full moon. And I said all these studies have shown that that's not true. But I'm glad that they think that that's true. But there's multiple studies that are like, that is not the case. Which Cory said that he sleeps worse on a full moon.

And I said, Cory, you fool. There is no chance that's the case. Earlier this week, I was having a tough time falling asleep, looked out the window full moon. And so I'm like, was Cory right? So I Googled it. There were like six to 10 studies saying that that is the case.

People have a harder time falling asleep on a full moon and they wake up sooner on a full moon. They conducted these studies in South America, in the United States, in rural areas, in urban areas, in laboratories where you didn't even know like what the moon was doing that night. And it's like pretty consistently agreed upon by science that you sleep worse on a full moon. So Cory, I'm sorry that that's alright I hate to say I told you so but I mean that was just my own life You know things I noticed in my life

I mean there's like what three nights in a row where it's almost full happened this week Did you notice that you sleep any slept any worse? You know my house has been in shambles We had a little water leak so we got fans and dehumidifiers going nuts So actually I slept great, but yeah typically full moon like my kid doesn't sleep well my dogs up roaming around needs to go outside and howl at the moon or something yeah yeah it's typically a rough night to sleep especially out camping you know it's a little bright. Seth you ever notice that full moons they mess with you? Other than just the the fact that it's light out

especially like right now when there's snow cover I just like so I like that that makes a huge difference Yeah, I like darkness when I sleep so but I can't say that I've noticed a difference Because of the full moon. Phil are your boys rowdier on a full moon you think? I don't know. I've never noticed any sort of pattern like that I know a lot of astrology people would beg to differ. A few days ago, were they a real pain in your butt? You know, actually, for the first time,

they weren't a pain in my butt for a while. So maybe it's like my kids are just the opposite, which, you know, yeah, I don't know. So Cory, going back to our Elk Camp conversation in October, I'm sorry. That's all right. Thank you for the apology, I guess. I wonder why that's the case.

Must be gravity. One of the studies I wonder why that's the case must be gravity What are the studies I saw said it's actually more rare in children than it affects their sleep And so it's something that's been baked into us by the time we're adults That just messes with you wild wild world alright We're gonna go to our first interview joining us on the line now is Joel Collender from Rock Island auction and he's here to show us some legendary guns that are coming up for sale. Joel, welcome to the show.

Hey, pleasure to be here. Thanks for having us on. First thing, Joel, tell us about what Rock Island Auction is. The short way to put it is Rock Island Auction House is the number one auction house in the world for fine and historic firearms. A lot of people associate us with six and seven figure firearms. Those are what we're most known for, but I love

coming on shows like this and saying, but there's guns for everybody. I mean, you just want to something to go out to the field. You need a pre-64 Winchester model 70. You know, we're, we're going to have that. We're, we're really catering to collectors at all levels. Not just collectors but people use these things too. You mentioned six and seven figure guns. What's the most expensive firearm you've ever sold? That would be a pair of firearms. That was in May 22. A pair of Remington new models. So percussion revolvers, mint condition, engraved by one of the finest engravers of the century, LD Nimshki. And they were presented to Ulysses S. Grant. Sold for $5.18 million.

Oh my goodness. 5.18. Is that what you expected those guns to yield? No, we had a, I believe pre-auction estimatection estimate between one and three. So we had a seven figure estimate on it. We knew those were special and above and beyond. Once you start adding those historic figures, a lot of times there's no precedent for that. There's no precedent on what should a Ulysses S. Grant revolver sell for. So when it comes to auction time, it's sometimes you get some fireworks. Yeah, it's worth what somebody will pay for it. How many guns a year do you guys move?

Anymore, so we're changing a lot of auction formats, trying to do a lot of new things with online platforms. Currently, just about under 50,000 guns annually. Okay, 50,000 guns moving through Rock Island Auction. Now I see that you're wearing some gloves today. I assume that that's so you can delicately handle some of the firearms that you're about to show us. And you've got some guns that are coming up

for auction in February. What do you have to share with us? Sure, well these are in our February 21st through 23rd sporting collector firearms auction of the full catalogs on our website. So people can do that. You don't need to be present, although we certainly encourage people to come.

If you're in that Dallas, Fort Worth area, come see the new facility that's in Bedford. We can talk about that later. But one of the ones, when you asked about the most expensive guns, one that was on our list for a long time was a Colt Walker you know it's the very very first revolver with the Colt name actually on it and we have one of those coming up in February. This is the model 1847 that's when Colt would have started

producing the Walkers absolute just as you maybe you can tell just a unit, just a unit of a revolver. I mean the cylinder is multiple inches in diameter. These are hard use to see them in any condition is absolutely phenomenal. There were only a thousand made for a military contract, a hundred made for the commercial for the commercial market. And they really, you know our president Kevin, Kevin Hogan, likes to say, you know, they really gave Samuel Colt the keys to the mint. They opened up doors for him. It was just the start of military contracts, as well as getting, you know, introducing people

on a more powerful scale to the repeater, or to a repeating pistol. For our audience members who are listening to this show, I'd suggest you go over to YouTube and watch this one, because Joel is handling these guns on the camera here we're gonna just get to see all these expensive guns what was the original price of that gun when it sold well the thousand that were sold to the US government they sold for $25 a piece and an extra $3 per revolver for accessories and accoutrements. Wow, okay, and what do you guys expect it to sell

for next month? The Colt Walkers do set the top of the market. We've sold examples commercially and otherwise for right around 1.8 million. Those are fine condition, all original, but there's still examples out there, and like I mentioned, a range of conditions. I believe we have the estimate at this one at 25 to 50,000

Well really good way for someone who you know if you don't want to spend The moon on a colt walker things like this provide a really easy way to do it to get an original Authentic you know Texas Ranger history colt Walker in their collection. That is a beast of a gun I see somebody in the comments of the live chat Saying that they would be the unlucky person who would put a dent in one of these things. Out of the 50,000 guns that you guys sell a year. I imagine some accident has happened along the way, right? Where somebody has fumbled a gun and you guys had a little accident there. We don't have it happen here too much, but again, a lot of the guns that come to us, we have our premier auctions which are kind of the world class.

Just the best guns in the world are going to be at our premier auctions. Those you don't see too many on, but the sporting collector auctions or some of our other arms and accessories auctions. You know there's a lot of really good history in those that aren't in pristine condition. You know they've been used, they've been there, they've done that, they've seen combat or they've seen the firing range. So, some of them have some marks on it already and some people prefer that. They'd like a gun that's been there and done that instead of a safe queen or one that missed all the battles. They want something that a Texas Ranger might've had in their holster.

So, like I said, we catered all levels. All right, Joel, what else do you have to show us today? Well, this next one's going to be two hands. One of our most popular videos of all time is me and another gentleman here firing some rifles by J.D. Jones. J.D. Jones invented like the whisper line of cartridges, which of course gave rise to 300 blackout famous handgun hunter, famous wildcatter, also did some rifle cartridges and rifle rounds and this is one of them uh this guy's chambered in 700 JDJ

Jesus wow that'll pack a wall I mean oh wow it doesn't even have a muscle break like that's ambitious uh giant fluted cylinder um makes these things out of Phoenix. And just no ATF, or it's ATF exempt, so you don't need an ATF letter on a gun like this. The host cartridge is actually made from a 50 BMG brass that's been necked out to accept that 700 caliber cartridge. How much does that thing weigh, Joel? Too much. Too much, I'm struggling with it now. I mean, this has got to be like 35 pounds. Caliber cartridge how much is that thing way Joel? too much

This has got to be like 35 pounds Joel can hold that for the whole interview because that that is quite the workout He can't even fit the whole thing in the frame of his screen. This is another beast of a firearm Yeah, you're gonna want to wait frankly with a with a round like that. I did some Napkin math and it's about 28,000 foot pounds of force. Wow. Like a 30-06 is generating 2,900 foot pounds of force. And what was this gun used for back in the day when people are toting these things around? Nobody was. That's the good news.

Like, it has sling swivels on it, but I don't know for what. Oh, nobody's going to carry this. You can see the way there isn't this heavy bench rest stock. So it's really just testing the boundaries of cartridge, which is what JD Jones is doing with the wildcatting and the in the handgun hunting. He's testing the boundaries for things like that. So target shooting. It's also made for watching

your friends shoot it, not you a whole bunch of times. That's probably more entertaining as well. The kind of guy who would haul that around in their back, I think that's exclusive to someone like Doug Durin. What was the original price on that gun? That I don't know the original price, but it's pretty modern. So these, the 700 JDJ, that's just developed as recently as 1995

They don't have the original price on our estimate For that weekend for the February auction will be fourteen thousand to twenty two five These big boards are becoming more desirable all the time So I wouldn't be surprised to see it float a little higher than that Okay, and that that thing you could shoot it if you bought that right? That's one that you take out to the range? Absolutely it comes with a bunch of solids so it comes with copper solids and soft points as well as the dyes and you would laugh if you saw the reloading dyes for this they're just comically large. Yeah all, and what's the last gun

you have to show us today? Last gun, kind of a classic. Got ourselves a Sharps. In fact, I'll flip it around, you can see the good side. Oh, that's beautiful. Sharps, 1874. And if you love 19th century American hunting, or even Civil War history,

boy, a Sharps is the way to go. I mean, pre-Civil War history, Civil War in the 1870s, like this one, you know, you come into those American bison hunts and all the hunting that was going on there, the sharps were extremely popular for that. They come in a variety of calibers and sizes and lengths, and they were gonna configure them

just about any way you wanted it So they're popular for that reason and you can great for collectors So if you want to collect a variety of them, you can sure find them And so when that gun was on the market in the 1870s, do you know what the selling price was? a base model gun So again short barrel of short octagon barrel and no kind of extra features, right around 35 bucks. And what do you think it's going to sell for next month? Let me check the estimate on that guy. We had it's 75 to 9500. Okay, $35 in the fancy stock, but we do have a half octagon half round barrel. Not as many of those produced,

the full round barrels are the rarest, the least produced out of the Model 1874. But like I said, great model. This kind of got its fame with the Quigley Down Under movies. So that was in 1874 and in the same chambering as well with the 45110. $35 gives me a little sticker shock for $18.74. I'd assume that thing would be half of that price. Yeah. Joel, if some listener is interested in one of these guns,

how do they make a bid? Rockislandauction.com. Best way to do it. You can set it up where you just set in a seal bid. You tell us what your max is. You can also request just right on the website to get a phone call. You can bid live via phone in the auction. Just click the button and one of our folks will call you maybe five lots before the auction or before that lot comes up and says, hey, this is Joel with Rock Island Auction Company. Let's talk about this gun a little bit

and what your plans are for it. So any number of ways to bid, I like to joke, it just about, we'll take a bid anyway, except for a smoke signal. Okay. It's a, it is pretty painless. Rock Island Auction is actually where we bought our punt gun. And I've heard rumors in the office that it may get fired next month. Oh, finally. If you're in the Gallatin Valley and you hear a big old boom someday, you'll know what was going on. Joel, I had saw in an email recently that there was a gun you were supposed to tell Phil about that was once upon a time

in your auction house. Bill, we set a Guinness Book World Record for the most expensive movie prop firearm ever sold, and that was for the Han Solo DL44 Blaster. Oh, nice. That was a couple years ago. You beat me to the DL44. I was gonna come in with that name, but no, yeah, that sounds great.

Where was I for this? How could I have gotten a notification? Yeah. That's a good question. We told a few people about it, but it went for just over a million dollars. You know what? I take it back, Joel. I take it all back.

You could have had that. Easy. A million dollars. Wow. It's like the place it did though. The bidding's free. It's just the winning gets lowered. That's a great point.

Yeah. All right, Joel. Well, we're definitely going gonna check in with you later this year to see what other cool guns you guys have at the auction house. Already looking forward to that next interview. Thanks for joining us. Hey, pleasure to be here.

Thanks very much. Have a good one, Joel. Thanks, Joel. All right, our next segment is the migration report. When you can't find food and the temps are so low Next segment is the migration report. The migration report is where Matt McCormick gives a waterfowl hunting forecast for each flyway. Take it away Matt.

Hey guys, I'm Matt McCormick with Flying V and welcome to the meat eater migration report for January 16th, 2025. It's been a little while since we've done one of these and for good reason. We've been hunting hard and as you can see here in the Pacific flyway of Montana, which is where I am right now, we are all the way snowed in, iced up, and the birds are pushing. We ended our season on January 10th, and let me tell you, it was a banger of an ending. And those birds on the front end of this storm pushed all the way down into Utah, down to the Sac Valley.

Everybody in the Pacific Flyway had a hell of a season this year. So kudos to everybody that was able to get out and do some hunting in the Pacific Flyway. In the Central Flyway, some seasons are starting to close, same with Mississippi. But as we're pushing south and if you've been paying attention, there are birds pouring out of the north down to the south on the front and back end of this recent storm. I see you guys got some snow down there. Talk to some guys. You guys are getting massive pushes of

birds as we dive into these last few weeks of the season. So if you're looking to get out and do some hunting, find a state that's open, hit the road with your your buddies if you're in one of those states that's still open good luck Have fun with these last few weeks because in about a month or so all of you including myself are gonna be wishing That season was still open. We're gonna hit the road tomorrow Go find some birds somewhere else because we just can't handle it and hey, it's hunting season boys It's still here. so get in the truck, go find birds and keep hunting. Good luck and be safe.

Now I believe that is the last migration report we'll have for the year, but for more water falling content from Matt and Flying V, be sure to go watch their show on the Meteor YouTube channel, a new episode just dropped today. Corey Seth, you boys take advantage of the final stretch of the Montana season here or no?

I did actually got out like for the first time this year in the last week or so. How'd that go? I was good. Got a couple of birds, not many. We weren't taking it too serious, but just something to do on the weekends. What was the hunt like? You were just like waiting down some stream nearby? Yeah, just local public stuff around here. Yeah, nothing fancy. You saving those ducks then for a special occasion? What are you gonna do with them? We ate some of them already. Yeah, we usually don't let them sit around too long.

My wife loves them, so if we have ducks we're eating them. Pretty fatty too, I'm sure Yeah, yeah they're delicious. Sometimes when it comes to your personal fitness goals you just need a plan. Peloton can give you the plan. Absolutely and Steve you've got a Peloton. I sure do. And Steve benefits from things like a variety of challenging classes. There are four week strength building classes, running, cycling, everything in between. Peloton can adapt to any goal in this season of your life. And by the way, the holidays are around the

corner. That was when you need to be on the Peloton. Find your push, find your power with Peloton at OnePeloton.ca. Hey, American history buffs, hunting history buffs. Listen up, we're back at it with another volume of our Meat Eaters American History series. In this edition, titled The Mountain Men, 1806-1840, we tackle the Rocky Mountain Beaver Trade and dive into the lives and legends of fellows like Jim Bridger, Jed Smith, and John Coulter.

This small but legendary fraternity of backwoodsmen helped define an era when the West represented not just unmapped territory but untapped opportunity for those willing to endure some heinous and at times violent conditions. We explain what started the mountain man era and what ended it. We tell you everything you'd ever want to know about what the mountain men ate, how they hunted and trapped, what gear they carried, what clothes they wore, how they interacted with Native Americans, how 10% of them died violent deaths, and even detailed descriptions of how they performed

amputations on the fly. It's as dark and bloody and good as our previous volume about the white-tailed deer skin trade which is titled The Long Hunters 1761 to 1775. So again this new mountain man edition about the beaver skin trade is available for pre-order now wherever audiobooks are sold. It's called Meat Eaters American History, The Mountain Men, 1806 to 1840 by me, Steven Rannella. All right, let's take a break for some listener feedback. Phil, what's the chat have to say? Yeah, well, I see that Dr. Randall and Steven Rannella are both in the chat currently.

So, hey, gentlemen, if you have a question for the crew, feel free to drop it in right now. Mitchell has a question for Spencer. I mean, you can be as specific or nonspecific as you'd like, but he says this is his first year hunting in South Dakota as a resident. What West River zone do you think I should try putting in for? Well, if this is your first year, then I assume that means you have zero points and you are going to be quite limited Mitchell, to draw like a pretty quality unit in Western South Dakota as a resident, you probably need three or four points.

What I would say is probably just avoid Gregory County. If this is your first time going West River, you're probably going to be drawn to that zone when you look at a public land map and see your draw odds. That unit has an incredibly low retention rate because people get fooled by the reasons I just said. And then they go there and they're super disappointed and they never go back again. And you may think at that point, oh, that's what it's like to hunt Western South Dakota.

So it's it's I would say just plan on drawing some preference points Make a quality trip in like 2027 and for this first year in 2025. Just don't do Gregory County Sounds good I'm actually curious about this because I don't know how I don't think Any of you guys are much of waterfowl people as far as I know But Eric's asking with duck season coming to a close and after that migration report Does any of the gang have a good waterfowl story from this season? I hunted zero waterfowl. That's what I thought Cory I'm too big of a skier to waterfowl hunt when I get old I'll waterfowl hunt

I saw I always I the best well I photographed a waterfowl hunt this year with Max Barba and it was phenomenal that dude is just a ducky dude. Uh-huh and Yeah, he did a bunch of scouting and found this spot the spring pond the ducks were flying flying too between there and like a Grain elevator that had some spilt grain laying around and yeah Max knocked on some doors and it was just a phenomenal like, you know, a thousand ducks over your head in the morning. Wow.

And you didn't have a gun in your hand. You had a camera. Nope, I had a camera. Yeah. I bet they're amazing shots though. Oh, they're great. As always. Yeah.

Let's see. Jova and Figuroa, I don't know. Thoughts about passing off venison as something else when cooking. People like to joke that you can't tell the difference between beef and venison. He says he's against it, but his wife is not. Have you ever done this before?

I wouldn't openly misdirect someone and say it's beef, but if I feel like someone woulddirect someone and say it's beef. But if I feel like someone would be hesitant to eat it, I maybe wouldn't volunteer that it's venison. I don't know, there's plenty of good ways to make venison where it doesn't matter what kind of red meat it is, specifically with like a ground meat recipe. You can get away with damn near anything and it doesn't matter that it came off a white tail

rather than a cow. Yeah, I love having people over for dinner that like are wishy washy about eating wild game and then just like not telling them what it is. And then like them eating it and being like, oh, this is delicious. And then I tell them. Yeah, blows my then like them eating it and be like, oh, this is delicious. And then I tell them, you know Yeah blows my mind how folks would rather eat a Walmart cow steak

Versus a wild deer. Yeah, there's a lot of them there are yeah I I feel like the people who are against it or more so they had a bad experience when they were a kid and like Their dad cooked their venison steaks to a well-done Yeah, of course no one's gonna like that if that's all the exposure you had for a while Just show them how dang good venison could be without lying to them I'm not sure why this is directed at you Seth, but I'm curious Seth can you eat the velvet from deer antlers as it have you guys ever done that before? I don't know why that's directed towards me either.

Never even thought about doing it. I think deer eat it. I feel like you see photos like when they're shedding their velvet, they'll eat it. There was also famously Ray Lewis, the linebacker hall of famer from the Baltimore Ravens. He got busted with, I think it was a banned substance at the time.

If it wasn't a bad banned substance, they were going to make it banned, but it was a deer antler spray, which I don't know how that was applied, if it's oral or if you'd like, you have an inflamed knee, so you spray it there. But deer eat their own velvet. Yeah, so I think you could do it too.

Didn't your wife kill a cactus buck covered in velvet? Yeah, she did. I wonder if that's what they're referring to. But you didn't eat it? No we didn't eat it. It's still on the antlers. They always say you can't eat the antlers but maybe you can if they're in velvet. When you got that mounted did they strip it off and reapply it or did they freeze-dry it? I think they... Not freeze-dry but like flash freeze it. Yeah I think they stripped it and reapplied it. Uh-huh. I I don't know how that works, but I also killed a velvet buck that one They just like did a flash freeze on it. It's it's held real good. It doesn't smell at all

I there was one there's a couple spots where it was starting to peel a little bit and I noticed that will peel like an Extra eighth of an inch every two years. Oh really? Without it ever being handled. So I imagine, you know, when I'm old and gray, that thing is going to be peeling a little more, but for right now it's holding real well. I one time in Pennsylvania was shed hunting

and found a shed antler that was still in full velvet. It was peeling off in places and it was cold outside. So I just like picked up, was like, oh, this is cool. And then I brought it in the house. Yeah. Not think like, cause I couldn't smell it. It was just like frozen. Yeah, it's live flesh on there.

Yeah. And it brought it in the house. And once it thawed out, it was just the most miserable smelling thing. Yeah. I imagine you handled the same way when Kelsey killed her cactus buck, but when I killed my cactus buck, threw the whole head in the freezer until I could get it to the taxidermist Yeah, we we took it like right away Yeah, so Steve says that question was directed at you Seth because it looks like he needs some help. I don't know what that means

Randall Williams and I know Randall was saying something before our show today, that the Sharps rifle plays a heavy role in their upcoming Mountain Man history project. Maybe Randall can tell you more in the chat about that. Oh, sure. Yeah, I'll do one more here Dr. Randall Williams is asking about the stream-a-thon. Great question Randall. For those of you didn't hear Phil Trivia I proposed a 24-hour stream of Red Dead Redemption 2 to raise money for the Meteor Land Access Initiative. Unfortunately, the person in charge of content is on paternity leave right now, and I'm very disappointed he didn't drop everything

he was doing, including his baby, to come tell me what the best idea that that was. But I'm still fighting for it. I'm gonna pitch it officially the next round of pitches that come through. So I've got faith. I have faith. Thank you for that question, Randall.

All right, our next segment is One Minute Fishing. Do I feel lucky? Well, do you punk? Go ahead, make my cast. One Minute Fishing is where we go live to someone who's fishing and they have one minute to catch a fish. And if they're successful, we'll make a $500 donation to a conservation group. This week, our angler is Chester Floyd, who's on a frozen lake in Wisconsin and he's fishing

for a donation to Musky's Inc. Chester, welcome to the show. Hello, it's windy as all heck out here. It looks cold too. Oh, god. And I'm cold. Chester is the first person in the history of one minute fishing to join us on the hard water. Tell us about what you're after today Chester. Well we're really after some bluegill but they're not biting. So we switched to baby little perch. So I hope that's what I catch here. And how long have you been on the ice today? About an hour. And how many fish have you caught? 30 oh Okay, so there's a chance. I thought the answer was going to be three how many beers have you drank jet?

None it's a workday. Oh But it's lunchtime you're in Wisconsin and you're fishing and Chester is my brother And Chester is... Stay high to my brother Ike. Oh, buddy, what's up Ike? Ike, famous from the 18 inch wheel song. Chester stole your bike.

And the Sturgeon Spear in that episode with Janus. That's right. He's a cookie guy. And Chester has the camera very tight on his face. You almost can't even see both of his ears. I think he's trying to hide his location. You almost can't even see both of his ears. I think he's trying to hide his location so nobody goes out there and catches his baby little perch that he's after.

When do you guys want to do this? Chester's getting real cold. I imagine his fingers are getting frostbitten. First thing Chester, tell us about what you're doing to try to catch one of these perch. What tactics we using? Looks like it involves a live scope. Oh no, that's a camera. Yeah, that's just down in 2D sonar. We don't really need it. Literally we're just in weeds and there's little perch everywhere. So I hope they're there right now.

And what are you dropping down there? A little waxy worm or what? A wax worm and a little tungsten jig. Yep. Okay, Chester, hand that phone over to Ike and your one minute of fishing starts as soon as that waxy worm hits the water. Okay. Okay. He's, uh's he's picking up his rod

he's showing the camera that that is bait for a little itty-bitty fish and We're ready. We're ready go for it All right, the worm is in the water your second starts now. I'm on the edge of my seat already We've only had a few successful anglers in the history of one a minute fishing Pat Durkin And he pulled up a perch that I would say if I described it as four inches long that would be generous Show us that fish Chester 20 seconds that was like 13 seconds 13 seconds Chester caught a little perch to make a donation to muskies Inc. Well done Chester

Thank you guys I I appreciate it! Are you gonna eat that thing? He's allergic! No, it's back! Bluegill at work! Kind of catching! Hold on! Oh he's running to another hole!

Is it a tip-up? What are you running to Chester? Where these bluegills are on the ice! What are you running to Chester? The hot blue gill bite should be the whole show like apologies to whatever You're keeping those I'm cold Okay. All right. We will see you later, Chester. Thank you for joining us. Congrats on getting that $500 donation from Musky's Inc. Nice job, buddy.

Good work, Chet. Okay, see you guys. Man, it looked like it could have been 20 or 30 below zero with the wind chill. Yeah, Chester makes it look colder, and I trust that it was very cold out there. Sound cold. Incredible stuff.

Wow, there we go. That was great content. I think our third successful angler for One Minute Fishin' we had Pat Durkin, we had Yanni in Louisiana, and now Chester Floyd joins the Hall of Fame. Wow. All right, our next segment is top threes.

Your top three. Your top three. Top three. Your top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three.

Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three.

Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three. Oh, top three it's a real treat. Oh, that's not the right thing. All right this week We are ranking the three coolest places we've ever camped Cory you go first. What's the third coolest place you've ever camped? The third coolest place I've ever camped would have to be in the Bob Marshall wilderness. I

Used to guide back in the Bob. Uh, we run fishing pack trips. There were six day pack trips. Uh, we joked that we were professional campers back there. Cause we were helping other folks get back there obviously and get out successfully without getting hurt. That was our biggest goal in and out. Uh, I did the math over eight years of running those trips. I did 340 to 360 days back in the wilderness, camping, sleeping on the ground under a tarp

if it was threatening rain. But yeah, that's a picture of me when I was a cook back there, a wilderness chef. I would have been 20 years old probably in that photo. 20 years. You look to be about 13 in that photo. Couldn't even enjoy a beer yet in that photo. There's a pile of

baby back ribs and some looks like baked beans being bushes baked beans of course nice yeah there's a photo of me with the river in the background I'm probably smegging dishes in the river she Megan I've never heard that term yeah just giving it a quick schmeg okay do you do you shmeg your dishes at home is that exclusively when you're outside no I shmeg before they go in the dishwasher helps your dishwasher out nobody else makes I mean I think I do but I don't say it that I don't have a dishwasher so no Seth is just washer yeah you got a shmeg. Yeah. Yeah But yeah by far top three third coolest place was right here in Montana then yep

Yeah And if seeing those cool guns that Joel was showing us earlier wasn't enough to get you to come over to YouTube and watch We're gonna be showing you pictures of the coolest places that we've ever camped as well and maybe in some cases Video all right Seth. What's the third coolest place that you've ever camped? So my third coolest place is along the Missouri River also in Montana. This was the view basically right outside my tent but there's you can kind of see there in the background there's an old homestead I don't know the history of it, but would love to know, but it, this was like one of the most peaceful, it was like in the spring, everything's green.

It was like one of the most peaceful camp spots I've ever slept at. Yeah. And it wasn't like a designated camp spot. It's just like off a two track. Um, turkeys were goblin, coyotes were running around just outside of camp there. It was just a cool spot to be in after like a long hard winter in Montana. And it's cool to just lay there at night just thinking about like, Lewis and Clark came, like saw that country, that exact country that I was sleeping in.

And so much of the Missouri River today looks very different than how it looked 100 years ago or 200 years ago, but that part of the river, that looks like it did when Lewis and Clark came floating. Yep. So how are the skiers? At night they were not great. Yeah, really? Yeah. Pretty green in that photo. Yeah, lots of sage. All right, the third coolest place I've ever camped is Death Valley in California. The third coolest place I've ever camped is Death Valley in California. It was March of 2023. That's the hottest place in North America. It's the biggest national park in the lower 48. Went there on a weekday, so it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves, me and my

wife. That picture you're seeing there, that's the Sailing Stones. And that's at the Racetrack Playa. Those are rocks that move on their own. No human is helping them create that giant skid mark behind it. It's all about ice and water and wind that pushes these things around this dried lake bed.

And you can see I'm in shorts and a t-shirt there. It was blazing hot at that time, but you got like the full effect of being in the desert because by that night it was freezing cold and There were no moon. There's no moon that night. The stars were super bright and a good barometer When you're camping and when you're stargazing is if you can see the seven sisters if it's a good Stargazing that night if it's a good stargazing night And the seven sisters that night were so vivid.

I'd never seen anything like it. It felt like every other time I'd seen the Seven Sisters in my life, that was wrong. And in Death Valley that night, that was the correct way to view the Seven Sisters. And there was no moon out, which makes for better stargazing. So Phil's got some more photos there.

Yeah, that was only a few hours after I was in the shorts and a t-shirt at the racetrack playa and we were camping in the national park, which you can't do a lot of in places in national parks where you're dispersed camping, dispersed camping would be what we were just talking about where you're not in a designated camping spot, death Valley, because it's so big and remote. They allow you to do some, uh, some dispersed camping. And that's what we did. The unique thing about that trip too, we were on a road trip. We're on a seven day road trip, me and my wife, and the next day we were going to

Phoenix from there. We were camping in Death Valley the night before the clocks changed for daylight savings, but we didn't have cell signal for like 24 hours. Um, so the clocks changed that night. We come out of the park. We're heading to Arizona, is going to Phoenix, who does not recognize daylight savings. Oh yeah.

They're also crossing a time zone going into Arizona. So my brain was totally in a pretzel, trying to figure out what time I was gonna get to Phoenix. I didn't know if it was gonna be 5 PM or 10 PM, just because again, daylight savings happened, didn't have cell service crossing a time zone going into a state that doesn't even do daylight Yeah, I was it felt like a mess. I'd have that Siri. Yeah, but we get there for sure All right, the second coolest place you've ever camped Cory Second coolest place I've ever camped would have to be on Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia

in 2013 my wife and I booked a reservation. Cumberland Island's part of the national seashore, national park system. So only 300 people are allowed on the island a day. And X amount of people, I forget how many, are allowed to camp. Is that a gator or a croc in your photo? I think it's a gator. Okay.

And a wild horse. Yeah. Well, wild horse in the background. But as a kid from Montana, used to seeing the horses obviously, but seeing the gators and the teeny tiny little ticks on there, the Spanish moss covering all the trees was really cool.

There's a lot of amazing American history on that island. I don't need to bore everybody with that. How'd you get to the island? You have to take a ferry. Okay. Yep, from St. Mary's, Georgia. And hauling your own camping gear there? Yep, so we just had everything in our backpacks. Water, like drinking water is tricky, so you want to carry around some water. There's a couple spigots of fresh water, but obviously you're along the ocean, so you got to be careful what you drink. So yeah, I highly recommend it. I'm gonna steal Seth's question. How are the mosquitoes? Mosquitoes non-existent. Okay. Yeah, we were there in

April late April I think but the ticks I mean I'm used to the bigger ticks we have here in Montana teeny tiny little ticks like if you left your the zipper open on your tent long enough they just crawl right in there and Otherwise it was amazing Seth second coolest place you've ever camped my number two also in Montana It wasn't so much the place. It was just kind of what we saw that night one of the nights while we were out there came This is a deer camp in November in Montana, but Actually Chester and his brother Ike were here at this, the moment this photo was shot.

Um, but we were kind of just sitting around the campfire at night and someone like, I don't know, he got up to take a leak or something and cause you can't really see the sky too well, like around the campfire, you know, some, when someone got up and was like, Hey, I think I can see the Northern lights and we all like jumped up and went away from the fire and you can just, it was just like a beautiful Northern lights show that night out on the plains and Eastern Montana is just like one of my favorite places. And it looks like you were successful.

I see some, uh, see some, yeah, we, we, I think almost everyone, uh, filled their tag on that trip. It was a good hunt. Yeah. Beautiful photo. Seth is showing us. You can see the Northern see the northern lights and every star in the sky Is that the seven sisters I can see above to the right of the oh, you know what? I think it is if you don't know what the seven sisters is go take a look online about the seven sisters and one you've

Certainly seen it before but maybe you didn't know what you were looking at But again, that's a good way to judge just how good the stargazing is, is how good you can see the Seven Sisters. And I think Seth was just showing it off in his photo there. Wow. All right, the second coolest place I've ever camped was the Valley of the Gods in Utah.

And this was just this last September. That day I visited Monument Valley in Arizona. And where I'm sitting there on this highway is where Forrest Gump famously stopped running. That was where he had his whole posse behind him and he stood right where I'm sitting and he said, I'm pretty tired. I think I'll go home now. And so that's where he delivered that line and that is Monument Valley behind me, which is in Arizona, but the place that I had camped was in the Valley of the Gods and that is Monument Valley behind me, which is in Arizona, but the place that I had camped was in the Valley of the Gods and that's part of the Bears Ears National

Monument that you hear a lot of talk about when it goes from one presidency to the next based on what they do to that bit of public lands. Where we camped you need four wheel drive to get there and a high clearance vehicle and that keeps out a whole lot of folks. And Valley of the Gods was so cool. I would rank it over the Grand Canyon as far as just like pretty places that I've seen. So getting to camp there and be among all that

was real special. And again, that's more dispersed camping. You don't need a reservation somewhere. You just pull off on a road. And opposite of when I camped in Death Valley, it was a full moon that night. And it just really lit up the Valley of the Gods. And so you could see every Butte and every Mesa

long after the sun went down. I took that photo probably around midnight. Wow, really? You can see everything that's happening miles around midnight. Wow. Yeah, you can see everything that's happening miles off in the distance. That's cool. All right, Corey, the coolest place you've ever camped. The coolest place I've ever camped would have to have been in Iceland underneath the Eiafetja Jokja volcano. Oh, wow. It was erupting. Sounded like you said that correctly. I know any I hope I didn't butcher do it do it again Hey, yeah, fat. Yeah, yo, yo, yo, wow

But I mean when you camp under it you better better know the damn name of it Is it erupting all the time? I don't believe it's always erupting But in 2010 if anybody remembers it it erupted from March to June I believe off and on and it disrupted the entire globe like flights from Europe through Asia and I think almost all the way into the US were disrupted from the ash cloud that came from it. Wow. But I circumnavigated the island it's called the Ring Road Highway one for four weeks spent on the road hitchhiking my way around Iceland. It was an amazing time. Highly recommend just visiting if you can just get there

for a long weekend but I spent a month there and I hitchhiked for half the way and then the second half. Hitchhiked? Yeah. Tell me about that. Well I had heard that it was one of the friendliest places in the world. Okay. So hitchhiking is a very easy way to get around. I mean the locals are amazing that lots of farmers just moving from town to town Yeah So it was actually very easy to get on highway one stick out your thumb and make it to the next town really and then there's Hostels everywhere, so it was really easy. There's a photo of me with most people know Doritos or most

Americans with no Doritos as cool ranch in the blue bag, but in Europe, or at least in Iceland, I'm assuming Europe, they're called Cool American. Cool American, just like Cory. Yeah. Cool American. I was very confused. Holding the bag of Cool American Doritos. And then this is me in front of the Phallological Museum to the layman's, that's the penis museum in Iceland. I highly recommend if you make it to the island.

Did you wind up in any sketchy situations? Hitchhiking around for a month no not at all no it was so easy, huh? I would do it again Did it make you did it make you think about picking people up on the side of the road back here in the states? Oh, not in the states No But I rented a car on the second half and then was able to camp in that scene right underneath the volcano I woke up to it erupting there was lightning and it sounded like cannons going off underneath. Whoa, that's cool

It was wild. I didn't pick up any hitchhikers because I never saw any but I said, okay You were willing totally. All right, Seth. See if you can top that the coolest place you've ever camped My number one is in Alaska on a doll sheep hunt with Steve and his brother, Danning. We camped up on this like finger ridge coming down from the main ridge the one night and below us that's just a huge that whole valley is just a huge glacier. And the the cool thing about camping by that glacier, and there was a couple nights where we camped closer to it than this, but.

So is that water behind you or that's the glacier? That's just ice. Damn. Yeah. That glacier made the craziest noises all night long. Oh, really? Yeah. Constantly moving.

Just like big pieces sluffing off. Yeah. And smacking the valley floor and just just it like popping, and just making crazy like moaning noises is wild. Anyone who's ice fish knows what Seth is talking about, or those sorts of noises that might wig you out if you're new to ice fishing. I can't imagine what a glacier sounds like.

Yeah, it was cool. And then this photo, Philip, you zoom in, there's two white dots right behind Steve there We woke up the one morning. There's some dull sheep below us Not legal, but it was cool to wake up to that And then the next photo there Phil is just the valley This is from from where we camped looking up Valley amazing

All right. I don't think I can beat either one of those, but the coolest place I've ever camped was off Cape flattery in Washington on Cape flattery is the Northwestern most part of the lower 48. If you look at a map and you see that little point, uh, that's way on the edge of Washington, that's that's Cape flattery. And from there, you're standing on a cliff. That's like, uh, you know like a 270 degree view around you. You are just on the edge of the United States.

So we visited that and then we couldn't camp there because that's a reservation, but we did camp down the road. And on our way out of the reservation, stopped in some small town and bought some smoked salmon from someone's smoke shed and then this is where I pulled my truck right onto the beach and camped there. Nice. And just listened to the waves all night and I wish I could like bring that home with me. I've since then like tried to listen to waves crashing on Spotify or something. It's not the same. Yeah.

So that that was probably the coolest spot I've ever camped. And then you could sit there and watch the ships come in at night and try to figure out like, what is that thing carrying? Oh, that's a cruise ship. Like that one, you know, is three times as long as any boat I've ever seen in my life. That that was fun to watch. Sometimes when it comes to your personal fitness goals, you just need a plan.

Peloton can give you the plan, absolutely. And Steve, you've got a Peloton. I sure do. And Steve benefits from things like a variety of challenging classes. There are four week strength building classes, running, cycling, everything in between. Peloton can adapt to any goal in this season of your life.

And by the way, the holidays are around the corner. Now is when you need to be on the Peloton. Find your push, find your power with Peloton at onepeloton.ca. All right, that is the end of the top threes and we have one interview left for today. Joining us on the line next is Phil Musket, the president of the Association

of Licensed Battlefield Guides. Phil is here to talk about being a guide at Gettysburg, which is one of the most competitive public lands jobs in America. Phil welcome to the show. Hey, how are you doing? We're doing good. Thank you for having me.

First thing, Phil, explain to us why being a guide at Gettysburg is such a coveted job. Well, this is the Mecca of the American civil war. So we get thousands of visitors. We get about 900,000 visitors a year, which is down from the 2 million we used to get, but people come here to learn and people come here and they hear the stories of the men who fought here, and it sparks a fire in them, and these people continue to come back and they find out about guiding, and they're like, hey, I can do that.

So they wanna aspire to be a licensed battlefield guide and spend the rest of their lives on the battlefield telling the stories of those men who fought here. And to be a guide there, you have to pass a very thorough test. I read a quote recently in a Wall Street Journal article from a lawyer saying that the Gettysburg guide test was harder than the bar exam.

Will you walk us through what the testing process is? Yeah, sure will. So I've also heard it's as hard as the Harvard entrance exam. But it's a four tier process, a four step process. The first step is a written exam, which is fill in the blanks, recognizing pictures and describe, you know, writing out what that is. That's the first part of the test. That's three hours. And then part two is essays.

And you've got five essay choices and you've got to write three. You've got three hours to get that done too. You're taking this exam, this past one we just did. We had 153, 52 people taking the test. As of today, which is after the exam, we have we only advanced 20 out of those 150. And how many of those 20? I told it.

I'm sorry Phil, how many of those 20 will end up passing? Hmm. Maybe five. Five of them will end up passing. Wow. Because the second step is a panel interview because yeah, it's great. You know all that knowledge, but you got to get it from here to here to where people can understand it. So that weeds out a lot of people as well.

Two, step three is what they call the field practicum. You spend three days working with a mentor who is a guide and you will write up your two hour tour that you're going gonna give to people when they visit. You give that to the mentor and practice that. They also drop you on a place in the battlefield, i.e. a little round hop. And tell us what happened here, you got five minutes. And see how well you do. And if you pass that, then you get into the oral examination, which is you could go around with your mentor, right until

they feel you're ready. And then you schedule with the National Park Service Superintendent, and you get two shots to go around the battlefield. It's 25 square miles and you got two hours and 15 minutes to tell the story. So all of that minutia you learned past tier one is out the window because you can't fit all that in. So you got to tailor it down to where it's still a story where you're telling the basics. You get two shots at that. If you pass that, you become a guide. And if

you fail that, you start all over again. Another important detail from that Wall Street Journal article was it said that the test hadn't been offered in seven years. So it's not like five people per year pass this thing. It's five people almost once a decade pass this like thorough test to be a guy to Gettysburg. Now, back when I passed the exam back in 2010, they were doing it every two years. And they were on that schedule until 2017.

And then for whatever reason the Park Service did not do the exam until we got down we're down to a hundred and thirty guides when I started out we had a hundred and fifty six so we're losing numbers and we need new blood so we finally got this new exam and we're losing numbers and we need new blood. So we finally got this new exam and we're hoping we get more than five and we're hoping the association of battlefield guys, we're hoping that this will start on another regular two, three years cycle like it used to be to replace the average age of the guide force right now is 72. Whoa. I'm keeping it down. I'm 57, I'm keeping it down. That's okay.

So, I'm doing my part. With, so yeah, it's, go ahead. With the stakes being so high, have you ever heard of somebody cheating? I have not heard of anybody physically cheating and being escorted out. I'm sure it's happened, but I'm not familiar with it. What I have witnessed is, you know,

people sitting at the table and they're looking over. Now, if they're writing the same thing down, the person, you know, I don't know. But that's the limit of what I've seen as cheating, because not only are you trying to become a guide, but you do on this exam. So, that's a bit too many. What are some examples, Phil, of people uprooting their lives for a chance to take this test?

Well we've got people from all over the country that are currently guides. And one of our guides, he's a lawyer out in San Francisco. And when he was studying to be a guide, he would fly in, he'd do his reading out there and his walk in the battlefield when he'd come here and hanging out with friends and spending the days on the battlefield. And once he passed the test and became a guide, he now, he still works in San Francisco and he'll fly out here and spend a month or two

out here doing tours, then go back to San Fran and work. We've got other guides. We had a Ohio State Trooper for a while. Basically he'd drive in on the weekends, do some tours, go back, do his job. So another example I thought of yesterday was we used to have a nurse who worked down in Tampa, Florida. And he would come up here for a month straight. And at that time we had quotas. So we had to do so many tours a year. And he would do his 90 tours in 30 days. So he was doing

beaucoup tours all at once. And then he'd go back to Florida and work. He used all of his vacation and work. He used all of his vacation to come here and give a tour. Get those tours. It must be a pretty rewarding gig for how badly people want to do it. But what's your favorite part of the job? Well, my favorite part of the job is sharing the stories. You know, taking people out on the field, spending two hours with them. That's the bare minimum tour. Putting people in places where important events happened, I enjoy that. People with ancestors come in here and being able to take those descendants to where their ancestor was fought, where he might've been killed, where he might've been captured, things like that.

That is what I enjoy doing. And even with our school groups, we have school groups come in. We jokingly sometimes call March California month because we get a whole bunch of California kids coming in. We get to tell these kids the stories and maybe that'll spark some interest in their lives and that'll bring the next generation into guiding and the Civil War and history of America. Yeah and Gettysburg is like 6,000 acres

all of which is managed by the Park Service. What can you tell us about the wildlife and conservation work that takes place there? Well, what we've got here, we've got a big deer population which they do every year, they have a big deer hunt here. Now, what they do is only federal employees are authorized to participate. So they come out here and they thin out the herd because it damages the vegetation around here and the local farmers' crops. But then they take all of the meat that they get and they donate it to the local shelters here in the south-central Pennsylvania area. So it goes to a good cause. Our current controversy on the battlefield deals

with beavers. We've got some beaver dams in front of Little Round Top, which was a marshy area some beaver dams in front of Little Round Top, which was a marshy area during the battle on July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, 1863. But now we've got these little ice skating rinks now this time of year. So we're dealing with that and the Park Service, they can't do anything to remove the beavers until they start to damage the asset. And they've done some mitigations which have worked. So the beavers are staying. Much to the chagrin of many historians. We've got a bald eagle that's seen around here periodically. We got a whole bunch of hawks, which they're fun to watch too. Watch them dive bomb onto a field mouse or something. That's really amazing. Occasionally we get a black bear in here coming down off South Mountain, which y'all would call a hill, but that type of thing.

The park maintains the tree lines as best they can to what it was at the time of the battle. So they're constantly working on keeping that and then the landscape correct, even down to the fence rails and fence lines that were here during the battle. So all of that stuff they do. Yeah, that's great. Last question, Phil, is your last name really Musket? Uh-huh, it really is.

That's what my daddy gave me all those years ago. And I have actually had a guy on a bus argue with me and I had to pull out my military ID and show him that I mean he was just adamant. I had people that have made bets and at the end of the tour they've settled their bet by asking that question. Oh yeah I get it all the time. I get it all the time. I get it all the time. We got a Chris Army here. We got a Steve Slaughter as well. Whoa. Okay. Yeah. He used to have an Andy Custer, but she got married. Oh, great. So now it's Andy Donahue. Yeah. But we had a Custer for a while as well too. There's some, there's some Destiny involved and maybe that helps you pass the test

at the end when your last name is musket or a custard or saw Thank you for guiding us through what it takes to be a guide and joining us on media to radio Okay, and anytime you're out check out Gettysburg tours guide Gettysburg tour guides org All right. Well, we're going to do that. We'll get you a tour guide and get you out on the battlefield. Thank you, Mr. Musket. Thanks, Phil.

Seth, you grew up, uh, I don't know how far from Gettysburg, but in the same state you ever been. Yeah. So I, uh, went when I started college, I started, I got my forestry degree from Penn State, Mon Alto. Um, which is a branch campus of Penn State, which that's, it used to be the Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, uh, forest academy, which was started by Gifford Pinchot, um, but anyway, that college is not far from Gettysburg.

Okay. Um, and like he mentioned South Mountain, the bear coming off, coming down from South Mountain, we used to do all sorts of like forestry classes and stuff on south mountain. Um, so I know the area well, and I've only actually been to Gettysburg, like a handful of times, just like I think three, three or four times, something like that. Um, but when I was younger in elementary school, um, my grandparents took me down there and we did, um, like a, like a motor tour, like we bought, uh, it was at the we did like a motor tour. Like we bought, it was at the time it was a cassette tape and we put that in the

cassette player in the car and drive around the park and it kind of like told you like all the history. So yeah. I assume you were there every weekend and you took a field trip there every year. No, no, did not. But it's, I recommend not but it's I recommend it It's like it's a really cool place. You can still see like Bullet holes and walls and in cannonball holes and buildings and stuff. It's really cool. Yeah, you know what?

I grew up in South Dakota. I've only been in Mount Rushmore once so Yeah, yeah same thing. All right that brings this to the end of this week's show Phil Let's get some final feedback from the chat. Yeah, I think people were just asking Stephen Randall questions live in the chat Oh perfect We don't have a lot, but we've got a few. Jude says that he shot his first deer while listening to media radio live Hell yeah Thanks Today?

He really learned a lot. I don't think it was today, but I would guess recently. Okay, so congrats Jude, the proof is in the pudding I would guess recently. Okay. So congrats, Jude, the proof's in the pudding. Congrats, Jude. Let's see, Wappity Woods says, Spencer, is it specifically Ham Special Light that you love so much? Just bought a six pack of original hams

up in Rogers, Minnesota. Curious your thoughts of Ham's original, Ham's Heavy. My origin story with Ham Special Light, it was the cheapest beer that you could buy at Hy-Vee. It was 11.99 for a 30 pack. Oh, I love it. And so when I'm an underage high schooler and I gotta send like one of the college kids I know

there to buy me, I gotta send a $12 bill and that'll get me a whole 30 pack of Ham Special Light. The other thing is, Ham's has a reputation of just not tasting good. Ham Special Light was like a classic American light lager, like a Bush Light or a Coors Light tasting thing. But because it said hams on the can nobody would touch it when you go to a party like i didn't have to worry about my 30

rack of ham special light walking away um so it was it was the cheapest beer um it was the beer that was least likely to be stolen um so that uh that was my origin story of ham special light it's not really about the taste it's just like uh nostalgia of it that it's it's just what I've always and the light is Discontinued now, right? It's continued. Okay. Yeah, and I'm hoarding my last I'm into my third the last case Call it call and ask what you're switching to and your special light is all gone. I'm I don't I'm not loyal to anybody So I might be sitting at the bar one time and so brewery pay attention, you know, who was light, uh-huh Hit him up on a and sliding to his DM Miller light does not matter. Okay Question for Seth from Eric. What is your favorite kind of hunt to film?

There is a good one Well, a lot of my favorite photographs come from southeast Alaska which oh we got Steve Vernell. You can go sit next to Seth. Seth was just talking about his favorite hunts to capture through a camera. Yeah and I was saying some of my favorite like one of my favorite places to photograph is Southeast Alaska because everything about it's cool and pretty. But the the big Alaska hunts like that dull sheep hunt the photos I showed earlier and then the moose stuff is always cool to photograph Steve you have any live feedback from today's show

It's going great, okay Boys are running over time. Yeah Phil Phil had mentioned that Steve and Randall were in the chat if you go back and watch this when it's not live You'll get to see the whole chat replay So if you're curious what Randall and Steve were talking about for the last hour You'll just get to read their comments there on YouTube cool. We'll just we are over time So last question because now that Steve walked into the room as well Henry's asking How's that beaver season coming along Seth and Steve you can I haven't said a beaver trap yet, but no all right

No, I've got a couple, but I haven't gotten in real. I haven't gotten real hardcore into it yet I mean I got a few I got a few I like trapping Beavers in the spring when they're real active. Yeah That's a lot of fun. I'll get out there in the spring Yeah, last thing before we get out here the meat eater movie club returns next week Randall and crew will be reviewing the 1988 movie The Bear which you can stream on Amazon, 2B or Pluto. Make sure you watch it before the next episode if you want to join in on the discussion. Alright thanks for listening, thanks for watching, we'll see you guys back here next week. Bye suckers!

Hey American History Buffs, Hunting History Buffs, listen up, we're back at it with another volume of our Meat Eaters American History series. In this edition titled The Mountain Men, 1806-1840, we tackle the Rocky Mountain Beaver Trade and dive into the lives and legends of fellows like Jim Bridger, Jed Smith, and John Coulter. This small but legendary fraternity of back woodsmen helped define an era when the West represented not just unmapped territory but untapped opportunity for those willing to endure some heinous and at times violent conditions. We explain what started the mountain man era and what ended it.

We tell you everything you'd ever want to know about what the mountain men ate, how they hunted and trapped, what gear they carried, what clothes they wore, how they interacted with Native Americans, how 10% of them died violent deaths, and even detailed descriptions of how they performed amputations on the fly. It's as dark and bloody and good as our previous volume about the white-tailed deer skin trade, which is titled The Long Hunters 1761 to 1775. So again, this new Mountain Man edition about the beaver skin trade is

available for pre-order now wherever audiobooks are sold. It's called Meat Eaters American History the Mountain Men 1806 to 1840 by me, Stephen Rinella